Kiki, do you still love me? What the summer hit teaches us about perseverance and patience

MUSIC PRODUCTION14 Nov 2018

Benjamin Workman. Chances are, you haven’t heard that name before, at least not the way it is. Now think of TrapMoneyBenny. Sounds familiar? You guessed right…you probably heard it while dancing to this summers biggest hit, the Drake anthem “In my Feelings”. If not for this song and for Drake mentioning him in the first couple of lines of the hit, he probably would never have come into the spotlight. A little strange, seeing that he’s been producing some amazing music for the past 10 years.

Patience and perseverance, these are two virtues that TrapMoneyBenny and most other music producers are well aware of. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Benny started making music as a hobby in high school, teaching himself how to produce along with a few of his friends who were into singing and rapping. After graduating high school, the aspiring producer moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in music. He signed up with the singer-songwriter collective, 1500 or Nothin’ and honed his production chops for a long 5 years till, in 2013, a member of Drakes production team reached out to him to solicit some beats. He sent some material he had been working on and felt like the big time was coming. Despite that promising connection, nothing happened with Drake and TrapMoneyBenny continued producing music and did some work for artists such as Key! and Chief Keef.

On a whim this summer, almost 5 years later, Benny decided to follow with up Drake’s production team and sent them an email. To his surprise, they replied and requested some beats and later sent a follow-up request for the stems of one particular beat, sending him back to work. This past July, “In My Feelings” was released as the fifth single from Drake’s fifth studio album, “Scorpion” and broke the record for most streams in a single week with a 1 whopping 116.2 million. The big time had officially arrived for TrapMoneyBenny, but it was after a long and arduous 10 plus year grind.

Over the 10 year road to “In My Feelings”, he worked every day and it was by no means an overnight thing. The moral here is twofold. Firstly, never get discouraged by a rejection and don’t let a rejection lead to a burned bridge. In 2013, Benny could have easily burnt his relationship after not hearing back about his music (we know how sensitive creatives are). Instead, he kept pushing and five years later, he hit the jackpot. The second and perhaps the most important lesson is that when you have nothing to lose, always go for it. The worst outcome in Benny’s situation was another unanswered email, but the best outcome is the timeline we’re currently sitting on. If someone has set you down, don’t span them with emails but remember sometimes a hopeful shout into the void gets answered. Want to write the next In My Feelings? Check out our Music Production capsule at https://projectmynt.com/course-music-production